Bitcoin drops after hitting record high

Reuters
Wednesday, December 06, 2017

LONDON - Bitcoin dipped back under $US11,000 ($F22,911) on Monday, coming off a record high just shy of $US11,800 ($F24,575) it hit on Sunday after a surge from less than $US1000 ($F2000) at the start of the year.

The cryptocurrency, which trades 24 hours a day and seven days a week, climbed as high as $US11,799.99 ($F24,574) on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange at around 2100 GMT on Sunday.

It was not clear what caused the move higher over the weekend other than new investors joining the upstart market, with so-called wallet-providers reporting record numbers of sign-ups over the past week. Analysts said Friday's announcement by the main US derivatives regulator that it would allow CME Group Inc and CBOE Global Markets to list bitcoin futures contracts had turned sentiment positive after a choppy week.

"The price rises are triggered by continued media interest driven by the expectation of futures trading on CME," Charles Hayter, founder of data analysis website Cryptocompare, said. By 1310 GMT on Monday, bitcoin had slipped back to around $US10,919 ($F22,738), down 2 per cent on the day but still up more than 100 per cent over the past three weeks. Sunday's high marked a 1121 per cent increase.

Think Markets analyst Naeem Aslam said Britain wants to increase regulation of bitcoin and other digital currencies by expanding the reach of European Union anti-money-laundering rules.